After reading "Sweat" by Zora Neale Hursten I believe that his story took place in the early nineteen hundreds. The story starts off talking about a black woman, Delia Jones, and her husband, Sykes. It tells how Delia works her fingers to the bone washing white people's clothes to provide for her and her husband. She tells how her husband doesn't respect how she is the reason he has all that he has. He often beats her and tells her that he is going to kick her out of the house and bring his other lover in to live with him. The townspeople see everything that is happening and they seem to do nothing about it. That is why I think that this story has an integral setting.
             The first example of this is that there are clear signs of racism in this story that would only still occur, in the way that it does, back in the early to mid nineteen hundreds. Delia's main source of income is to wash white people's clothes. She tells how she works everyday of the week and never catches up is the only way she can support her and her husband. Another sign is when the husband is obviously angry at her for bringing these white people's clothes into his house. On several occasions he kicks the clothes around and grinds dirt into them remotely showing his hatred for white people.
             Another example is when all the townspeople know that Delia gets abused but they can't do anything about it. The townspeople talk about how beautiful she was before they got married and he started beating her. These days most people who noticed a woman was being abused would notify the appropriate authorities and the man would be arrested. In this story you obviously see that the townspeople feel like their hands are tied. Also he tells her that he is going to throw her out of the house she paid for and move another woman in. This tells me that woman couldn't own anything back in those days even if they paid for it....